Reflection:
The Story of the Pentateuch : An Introduction to the Old Testament The desire to study God’s word to obtain a personal connection is a pursuit for many believers. Beginning a course to study and engage with the word at a collegiate level can be overwhelming and intimidating. Even though one may read the word countless times during their lifetime, understanding the reading material academically and historically is a different concept to master. Personally, I was apprehensive about my overall ability to retain the information and comprehend the context of the scientific and historical aspect of God’s word. However, Tarwater wrote in a manner that was engaging and invited me into the historical importance of the words and understanding God. From beginning to end, Tarwater
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Tarwater explains that even through the small snippet of information how “the God we serve in the New Testament is the same God who worked on behalf of the people of Israel in Exodus.” Through the last chapters, I began to appreciate Jesus’ teachings and the correlation to the commandments of the Old Testament. Before this book, reading through the Old Testament did not bring about the importance within the books of Leviticus or Numbers. However, the author’s strong statement “the laws were meant to demonstrate how obedience and holiness were to permeate every aspect of the people’s lives” highlights the nature of the Bible to be a continual work highlighting God’s mercy and forgiveness. Digging deeper into the context of the stories through the author’s visual narrative that I could see how the theme of each book extended into another. Ultimately, the book of Leviticus is clarified with the realities of how sinful the people are and why God had to ultimately bring to earth His son to take away our
Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures (1:113). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
Leviticus can be divided into four main themes, offerings, priesthood, clean and uncleanness and the holiness code. These four themes develop to reveal to us the main purpose of the book which is right worship and right living, with becoming holy and staying holy (Arnold & Beyer 1999:120).
The Book of Leviticus genre is law. According to our text Leviticus author is anonymous, but the evidence points to Moses as the writer. (Illustrated bible survey Pg. 62.) The book was written around 1445 BC after the renewal of the Mosaic covenant. The major theme of the book of Leviticus seems to point to holiness and ceremonial cleanness. Leviticus is seen as a worship guide for priest and layman. The purpose of this book was to teach Israel how God expected them to act as the chosen people of God. Some major events that took place in the book of Leviticus are Moses explains that sacrifices are essential for Israel to have access to God. Moses gives the laws of sacrifices which shows how God expected to them to make atonement for their sins. Specific offerings included in the book of Leviticus are the sin offering, the guilt offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, which was how the Israelites where to pay for their sins. Appointed festival which were to be sacred include the Sabbath day, the Passover and f...
Green, Joel B., & Longman, Tremper (Eds.). Holy Bible -- The Everday Study Edition. Dallas: Word Publishing. 1996.
It is possible to write on the life of Jesus in a topical manner. This paper will be divided into three parts. In the first part of the paper, I will discuss about the nature of a gospel, Johns views vs. the Synoptic, whether or not the writers of the gospels were eyewitnesses and how they used written sources and also about what is Q source and how Mathew and Luke were similar when it came to their sources; how the old testament stories (Moses, Samuel, Elijah) used to interpret Jesus and finally whether or not Sermon on the Mount happened. In the second part of my paper, I will talk about Jesses birth and childhood, the miracles, his resurrection and also the actions Jesus did relating to curing people, spirits and how they are these interpreted: prophet, magician, madman compare Saul and Elijah. In the final part of the paper, I will discuss about what Jesus spoke about the Kingdom of God vs. the kingdom of the Romans and what he meant by the end of the world and also the reason behind the Romans executing him. My sources for this paper will be the New Jerusalem Bible (Gospels of John, Mark, Matthew and Luke) and lecture notes from Professor Trumbach.
The Bible Student will have more knowledge of how to interpret God’s Word when finished with the work. Fee and Stuart achieve their goal of helping the reader not only with interpretation, but with application.
Every author depicts information in light of purposes and themes. Sometimes these themes are moral issues, emotions, or existential concepts. In the case of the Old Testament, the authors wrote books that highlighted various ideas such as love, obedience, and suffering. Despite various subtopics, the Old Testament clearly demonstrates the theme of God’s faithfulness to his followers.
The book of Exodus is seen as, the “Second Book of Moses”, as well as the second book in the Pentateuch . The Pentateuch is the first five books of the Old Testament, and is also known as the Torah, or “Law” in Hebrew, which is just one section that makes up the whole Hebrew Bible or Tanak. The Torah consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, and is the beginning sections of the Bible. The other two sections are known as Nevi’im, “Prophets”, and Ketuvim, “Writings”. Upon analysis of the book of Exodus, it is expressively important to consider the historical aspects, literary issues, and theological themes that make up such a book.
In the Holy Bible, the book of Genesis starts by saying “In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth…” (The New American Bible, Gen. 1.1). These powerful words layout the base to the entire Bible which tells readers to accept God as the powerful creator, our heavenly father, and remind us the fact that we exist because of God. In fact, the book of Genesis is the most important book in the Bible because it simply tells the story of God’s creation of the universe and how God created man and woman. Moreover, God teaches life lessons throughout in the book of Genesis by explaining different concepts of obeying, punishing, and forgiving others as well as the consequences that can come about if one goes against God’s will. As I read the
Roncace, Mark, and Patrick Gray. Teaching the Bible: Practical Strategies for Classroom Instruction. Atlanta: Society for Biblical Literature, 2005.
In our first class session we accomplished a lot, we learned about the key themes that can be found in the New testament and how one goes about questioning the themes and connecting the new and old testaments. The one major theme that we found to be one of the big ones of the New Testament was Jesus and all his deeds, death and resurrection. When this theme was first revealed to the class, I thought well obviously! But once we began to talk about all the other themes such as restoration, redemption, the church and the building relationship between the Jews and Gentiles. And Dr. Hall began to connect each theme together with a link and with each connection every last theme eventually led back to Jesus and his deeds, death and resurrection
Jesus served as example for all of humanity. His life work was to solve the fundamental problem of humanities sin and to provide eternal life with the Father. Jesus Christ demonstrated the way humans should live. He modeled behavior to the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, women, tax collector, to His friends. He came to set the example of the way to live for Christians. Basically, Jesus life was an outline of how to live your own life. Jesus confirmed that you should love your neighbor as yourself. That you should love your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength. This was demonstrated on a daily bases. Jesus verified that although humans are prone to sin, one can make a choice to not sin. When tempted by Satan, Jesus refrained from sin and turned to God the Father for strength to turn away from the temptation. Jesus was the teacher of complete, true knowledge.
Lea, Thomas D., and David Alan Black. The New Testament Its Background and message. 2nd edition. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2003.
Let us start with this statement: I believe that new preachers and new people to the Christian Faith try hard to avoid the Old Testament. If they do, they only look at one section and struggle to connect all the pieces together. One of the issues that makes people uncomfortable is the prophets. First, there is a definite volume of them, and then they are divided into “major” and “minor.” I think at the core of our hearts, we are trying to understand the difference among the different biblical prophets.
As a student at the University of Portland, who has now spent a semester living amidst the Catholic culture, I have started to think about religion fundamentally different than prior to this year. Theology class has been enlightening. In class, a new external lens of how one can view faith while learning to think critically in the search of truth has been presented. The inquisitiveness in me has led me to ask hard questions regarding myself, my perceptions, my misconceptions, and even some heartfelt convictions while contemplating my faith. I have experienced legitimate struggles. I acknowledge I have ignorant barriers keeping me from totally living a life with God and for God due to the confusion of exactly what that means. “All truths are